The present invention relates to the connection of system units to a network. In a computer network, the system units connected to the network are provided with respective identities (e.g., respective network addresses). It is important that conflicts between network identities are avoided as conflicts can lead to fault conditions occurring on the network.
The responsibility for allocating network identities can be achieved in many different ways, depending on the configuration of the network. In some systems, the network identities can be allocated centrally. In other examples, the network identities can be set in each of the system units connected to the network. However, an environment where an entity that is responsible for allocating, or distributing network identities could potentially develop a fault, and may need to be replaced causes additional difficulties in providing a reliable allocation of network identities so that the same identities are not used by two or more system units. The present invention seeks to address this. within the shelf, it is advantageous for the copies of the network identities to be associated directly with the service processors 74 of the CSSP 71, and for the service processor to perform the steps described above for verifying the integrity of the network identities.
Also, although in the described example, a complete copy of the set of network identities is held in the service processors that form support units, in other examples one subset or respective subsets of the network identities could be stored in the respective support units according to a desired implementation.
Although the embodiments above have been described in considerable detail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace all such variations and modifications.